Nov. 8--For months, investors in a soured currency investment program that was promoted by some Twin Cities financial advisers have been left to wonder what became of their money that seemingly vanished overnight.

Now the evidence is mounting that at least some of the missing millions went to Panama.

Bo Beckman, one of the Minneapolis financial advisers who promoted the currency investment, and one of his attorneys traveled to Panama last month in a frantic and successful effort to track down the fate of at least part of the missing money. They were able to identify and freeze some valuable land that a former business associate and others were buying for a condominium tower and another parcel that was intended to become the site of the largest hotel-casino in Panama City.

Beckman said he traveled to Panama after obtaining information from a variety of sources, including investigative reports in the Star Tribune, indicating that at least $12 million of the investors' money had been routed through a California attorney's office and on to Panama to pay for the land.

According to Lawrence Shapiro, the attorney who traveled to Panama with Beckman, a Panamanian court filed documents with the public land registry last week and notified banks nationwide that it had issued an order freezing both the land and any accounts held by the business entities developing the condo tower and casino.

Beckman is a 39-year-old financial adviser who owns the Oxford Private Client Group, where he specializes in equity investments. Until July, he operated out of the Van Dusen mansion in Minneapolis alongside Trevor Cook, who promoted the suspect currency investment through companies called Oxford Global Advisors and Oxford Global Partners. Beckman was paid commissions for referring clients to the currency investment.

Beckman, Cook and their companies are among 18 defendants in a federal lawsuit in Minneapolis brought by 107 investors from across the country who claim they can't get at about $35 million they invested in the currency program. Estimates of the total size of the currency investment program range from several hundred million dollars to as much as $4.4 billion.

Although they're codefendants in the lawsuit, Beckman's and Cook's responses to the investors' complaints couldn't be more different.

Cook has remained silent about the whereabouts of the investors' funds.

Beckman has hired attorneys in Minneapolis, Switzerland and Panama to try to find the money. He and his lawyers at Greene Espel in Minneapolis have held open meetings with investors and sent periodic updates on their recovery efforts. Beckman testified in court recently that he and his family made substantial investments in the currency program because he believed it was a good strategy compared to the then-teetering stock market.

Of course, helping the investors could be a good defensive strategy, too. Shapiro advised Beckman not to answer questions that strayed from his efforts to recover the money. Beckman insists that his only interest is to recover money for the investors.

"I don't see this as a defense against anything," Beckman said last week. "We have relationships with our clients that are unique.